New Life'n

She also said, 'it's not really about making her happy, but about doing what's best for her'

We've been married 33 years.  We saw both our past and future when we rented The Notebook over the weekend.  Bawled our eyes out.  I asked out of the clear blue sky:

Me:  So what does a husband need to know to make his wife happy? 

Her:  Have at least a vague understanding of how a woman's emotions work.

Me:  So how do they work?

Her:  I don't know!  That's for you to figure out.

Her, continuing:  Understand that even though she knows better, that she's not supposed to, a woman can live out of her emotions.  Especially with her husband.

Me:  What does the man do then?

Her:  Be understanding -- don't make it worse by responding out of your emotions.

At this point I think (but don't say) so you can act emotional, but I can't?  I don't say it because I know the answer -- yes, that's right.

Her:  A woman might get mad and hit and yell I hate you! but it's only the emotion of the moment.  Like that scene in the movie.  But the man shouldn't act like he believes she meant it.  And as two people grow in their dependence on Jesus, their emotions can be healed

Noah and Allie didn't see each other again for 7 years.  Even though neither one of them meant it.

Faith(s) of the Fathers

So were America's founding fathers Christians?  Ben Witherington looks at a new book, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers --

Our country was certainly not founded by secular humanists...It was however founded by people whose religious beliefs ranged from non-Christian Deism to more Christian Deism, to, in the case of people like Samuel Adams, John Jay and Patrick Henry, orthodox Christianity.

He says "none of the first five presidents would appear to have been orthodox Christians in any modern sense of the term" but --

better things can be said of some of the wives of the first Presidents who were much more orthodox and church attending than there husbands (e.g. Martha Washington for example).

One of the reasons for the difference between the Presidents and some of their First Ladies...

the women were charged with educating their children with the tools at hand, the primary tool of course being the Bible....(this makes) good sense, as the spiritual nurture of the children had been left in their hands. It was the women who arranged the baptisms, weddings and the rest. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Read the article HERE.  Check out the book HERE.

When toddlers attack

And there's no time to think -- how to do the Itsy Bitsy Spider thing

 

Loved ones in the sky?

Where planes are over Charlotte (or anywhere) RIGHT NOW.  During the middle of an average day, there are over 4,000 planes in the air over the U.S.

Ever ask 'why is everything going wrong in my life?'

When things went bad all those years ago, everything was ruined or killed or cursed.  It was like an invisible Tsunami that hit everything, only you couldn’t see the wave and all the damage wasn’t immediately obvious.  But it changed everything for everybody and even for the whole earth.  It's so bad God doesn’t even try to fix it.  There’s no repairing what’s ruined.  But, there is replacement.

It seems God's way of fixing and improving is to let the old be dead, and to bring in the new.  Sometimes He seems to want the old me to realize it’s dead, and give up trying to be alive, before He brings in the new.  So to prove that it’s dead, He lets bad things happen to the old’s efforts to stay alive.  It might happen in a marriage or family relationship, or at work, or with money, or maybe health, or with feelings and emotions.  Not that He wants to get rid of the marriage, or the relationship, or the job or money or health or feelings & emotions -- it’s what they’re being used for: a substitute for God.  So they get messy and frustrating, to prove they can’t really replace what God wants to be for me.  He might use the good thing I need and that He wants to give me, as a thermometer to show me my temperature with Him.  If I'm bullheaded, it can take a long time.  Sometimes it can take a long time even when I'm not bullheaded. 

It's exciting to replace the old car with a new one.  But, if I'm the old car and they take a sledgehammer to me so that I feel and experience death and the need to be replaced, and I'm starving for relief...that might not seem exciting.  But, really it is, because the birth of a new trust in something trustable is way more exciting than a patch on something old just to keep it running.  Maybe this is a little like that. 

Why dogs need seat belts

By the way -- about the painting below

It's called Wheat Field Under Threatening Skies (you can click it to make it bigger).  It's one of Vincent Van Gogh's last paintings.  Story is, it was in that field that he killed himself on July 27, 1890.  He was 37.

• They found this letter to his brother with his body
• This letter was written from his brother to their mom, after Vincent's death
• And a friend describes his death and funeral

The storm, the divorce, the question

The story behind Praise You In This Storm -- Songwriter Mark Hall from Casting Crowns has written a book telling the stories behind their songs.  (Praise You has a North Carolina connection)--

She wanted the Maker of breaths to swoop in and fill her child's lungs and dissolve every tumor with His mere glance. She wanted another miracle...

Missing being Mrs. -- the long journey to a new self-image--

I think a lot of my depression and anger following my divorce were because I no longer knew who I was...

The impact of a single question -- it can start a chain reaction--

I attended college in Southern California, and one day (I remember this like it was yesterday), a guy named John tapped me on the shoulder and asked me...

New old-fashioned toys

Tin!

Hard to hear, hard to ignore

More Sept.11 calls have been released.  Story HERE.  Link to all calls HERE.

Most of the calls involved firefighters and dispatchers. The voices of 10 civilians calling from inside the World Trade Center were edited out because of privacy concerns.

The tapes recorded rescuers complaining about chaos in the twin towers. But they also evoked the firefighters' powerful sense of duty, with some struggling to evacuate the towers and others begging dispatchers to send them to the scene.